Catcher in the Rye is published - Jul 16, 1951 - HISTORY.com Catcher in the Rye is published Share this: Catcher in the Rye is published Author Catcher in the Rye is published URL Publisher A+E Networks J.D. Salinger’s only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is published by Little, Brown on this day in 1951. The book, about a confused teenager disillusioned by the adult world, is an instant hit and will be taught in high schools for half a century. The 31-year-old Salinger had worked on the novel for a decade. His stories had already started appearing in the 1940s, many in the New Yorker. The book took the country by storm, selling out and becoming a Book of the Month Club selection. Fame did not agree with Salinger, who retreated to a hilltop cabin in Cornish, New York, but he continued to publish stories in the New Yorker periodically. He published Franny and Zooey in 1963, based on two combined New Yorker stories.

Salinger stopped publishing work in 1965, the same year he divorced his wife of 12 years, whom he had married when he was 32. In 1999, journalist Joyce Maynard published a book about her affair with Salinger, which had taken place more than two decades earlier. Notoriously reclusive, Salinger died at his home in New Hampsire on Jan. 27, 2010. He was 91 years old. Related Videos The 100 best novels: No 72 – The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951) | Books | The Guardian The 100 best novels The 100 best novels: No 72 – The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951) JD Salinger’s study of teenage rebellion remains one of the most controversial and best-loved American novels of the 20th century JD Salinger in New York, November 1952. He was soon to move to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he became ever more reclusive.

Photograph: San Diego Historical Society/Getty Images Share on Messenger Close JD Salinger’s Holden Caulfield is to the 20th century what Huckleberry Finn is to the 19th: the unforgettably haunting voice of the adolescent at odds with a troubling world. Holden, the opposite of Huck, is an unhappy rich boy who has done a bunk from his posh secondary school, Pencey Prep, in Agerstown, Pennsylvania. He begins his first-person narrative in words that echo the famous opening of Twain’s novel ( No 23 in this series ), a frank disavowal of “all that David Copperfield kind of crap”. Holden declares that he isn’t going to tell us “about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down”. Actually, that’s just what he does, writing (apparently in retrospect from California) about three days in December 1949 when, having been chastised by his school “for not applying myself”, he plays truant over a long and memorable weekend in Manhattan. Holden is tortured by the battle to come to terms with himself, with his little sister Phoebe, and their dead brother Allie.

Like many adolescents, he feels that the world is an alien, hostile and comfortless place run by “phonies”. One of the many remarkable things about Salinger’s portrayal of Holden Caulfield is that he seems to be fully inside the head of this troubled 16-year-old when the author himself was almost twice that age. Salinger had fought in Europe as an infantryman, after landing at Utah Beach on D-day, and later saw action at the Battle of the Bulge. Quite a lot of the downtown action in The Catcher in the Rye (a night out in a fancy hotel; a date with an old girlfriend; an encounter with a prostitute, and a mugging by her pimp) might almost as well describe a young soldier’s nightmare experience of R&R. That’s just one reading. Salinger’s masterpiece (he published comparatively little after its appearance) has also influenced later writers with angry protagonists, from Martin Amis’s Charles Highway to Philip Roth’s Portnoy and many others besides. The Catcher in the Rye remains the crazy, and often very funny, distorting mirror in which generations of British and American teenagers will examine themselves.

At the same time, it instructs them to give nothing away to “the phonies” who ruin all our lives. “Don’t ever tell anybody anything,” says Holden Caulfield, echoing Huck Finn again. “If you do, you start missing everybody.” A note on the text (and its afterlife) The Catcher in the Rye had some difficulty finding a publisher. One editor judged its protagonist simply “crazy”. The New Yorker, which had favoured Salinger’s stories, stalled with indecision. Eventually, it was published on 16 July 1951, by Little, Brown in Boston, with a famous, award-winning cover designed by E Michael Mitchell. Salinger had been working towards his masterpiece, in sketches and drafts, for a decade and more. Some of his earliest short stories, written as a student, contain characters reminiscent of those in The Catcher in the Rye. Indeed, while still at Columbia, Salinger wrote a story, The Young Folks, that included a character described as a prototype of Sally Hayes (Holden’s old flame).

In November 1941, Salinger also sold a story (Slight Rebellion Off Madison), featuring a disaffected teenager with “prewar jitters” named Holden Caulfield, to the New Yorker. After the outbreak of war, in which Salinger served as an infantryman, the piece was considered unpatriotic and did not get published until December 1946. Meanwhile, another story entitled I’m Crazy, containing material that was later used in The Catcher in the Rye, appeared in Collier’s magazine on 22 December 1945. Another long story about Holden Caulfield was accepted by the New Yorker for publication, although it never appeared. The Catcher in the Rye continues to hold its place as the defining novel of teenage angst and alienation. My friend, the critic Adam Gopnik, says it is one of the “three perfect books” in American literature (the others are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby , Nos 23 and 51 in this series). Gopnik says that “no book has ever captured a city better than The Catcher in the Rye captured New York in the 50s”.

Book and author quickly acquired a mystique, partly abetted by Salinger, who cultivated his obscurity to the point of mania, becoming as secretive and self-obsessed as Holden Caulfield, in the words of the New York Times, “the Garbo of letters”. Apart from this novel, Salinger published just one collection of stories and two short books about the Glass family (see below), which some readers prefer. However, between 1961 and 1982, The Catcher in the Rye became more studied in the high schools and libraries of the United States than any other novel. By 1981, it was the second most taught book in the United States. Teenagers especially loved the book for what is taken as Holden Caulfield’s sponsorship of rebellion, combined with his promotion of drinking, smoking and sex. More seriously, there is the grimmer association of The Catcher in the Rye with the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman, and John Hinckley’s failed assassination of Ronald Reagan. Salinger himself remained sequestered from the world in New Hampshire. “There is a marvellous peace in not publishing,” he said, some 20 years after he first fell silent.

Three more from JD Salinger Nine Stories (1953); Franny and Zooey (1961); Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). J.D. Salinger | Biography, Books and Facts [Cite This] J.D. Salinger Famous not only for his writing but also for his private nature, J.D. Salinger is the author of the famous 1951 novel, The Catcher in the Rye. The autobiographic nature of the novel became the voice of a whole generation of young men wedged in frustration over the conventions of society. An immediate best-seller, the success of The Catcher in the Rye, however, did not persuade Salinger to publish another novel. Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City on January 1, 1919. He was the youngest son of a rabbi, Sol Salinger and Miriam. Not proving to be a good student, Salinger was sent to Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, Pennsylvania after failing at the McBurney School in New York. Salinger later studied at Ursinus College and New York University.

Salinger published a story for the first time at the age of 21 when he met and befriended Whit Burnett who was the founder and editor of the Story Magazine at Columbia University. Burnett encouraged Salinger’s writing talent and published his stories in his magazine. Soon Salinger’s work started making its way to more publications such as the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. Just when Salinger’s writing career had started taking off, he was interrupted by the break of World War II and had to serve in the Army (1942-1944). It was during this time that Salinger started working on his masterpiece, giving birth to the legendry character of Holden Caulfield. The trauma from the war resulted in a nervous breakdown after which Salinger was hospitalized. While under treatment, Salinger met his first wife Sylvia, probably a German Nazi. The two stayed in marriage for a short period of 8 months only. In 1955, Salinger married again, Claire Douglas, daughter, of a noted art critic. Maintaining the marriage for a little more than 10 years, the couple had two children.

Six years after his divorce, a new relationship bloomed when he noticed the name of Joyce Maynard, whose story in New York Times Magazine impressed Salinger after which he started a series of intense correspondence with her. Joyce soon moved in with Salinger and was lashed out after 10 months. In 1998 Joyce wrote about her experience with Salinger, describing him to be an obsessive lover. Maynard was not the end of Salinger’s love life. He was romantically involved with actress Ellen Joyce for some time after which he married Colleen O’Neill, a young nurse who remained his wife until his death on January 27, 2010. Salinger was showered with praise when his novel, The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951. Despite also receiving some very harsh criticism on grounds of promoting immoral views, the book, ironically became the most taught book of the 20th century with its inclusion in the curriculum of high school literature. A best seller for life, the book has sold over 120 million copies all over the world.

According to John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, the reason for his crime was in the pages of The Catcher in the Rye which was found in Chapman’s possession at the time of his arrest. Although Salinger continued to write till the end of his days, The Catcher in the Rye remains his only published novel. He led a private life of immense secrecy and speculation. Some sources believe there may be at least 10 completed novels hidden in Salinger’s house. Buy Books by J.D. Salinger J.D. Salinger and The Catcher in the Rye: Read TIME's Original Review Cover Credit: ROBERT VICKREY JD Salinger on the Sept. 15, 1961, cover of TIME Author J.D. Salinger died five years ago, on Jan. 27, 2010 When The Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger died five years ago, on Jan. 27 of 2010, TIME’s remembrance of his life noted that he had long been “the hermit crab of American letters,” dissatisfied with his own fame and drawn to a reclusive life away from the spotlight.

In fact, when he was the subject of a lengthy cover story for TIME in 1961, shortly after the publication of Franny and Zooey, he had already begun to recede into seclusion. Though the story is rife with biographical details — his IQ score was 104; he “played a fair game of tennis”; he was literary editor of his school yearbook — it’s absent any comment from the man himself. The cover art too drawn from a photograph, not from life. But his books, the story suggests, contain plenty of information about the man who wrote them. “For U.S. readers, the prize catch in The Catcher in the Rye may well be Novelist Salinger himself,” TIME’s original 1951 review of the book posited. “He can understand an adolescent mind without displaying one.” That’s not all the critic had to say about the book. Here’s the full review: THE CATCHER IN THE RYE (277 pp.)—J. D. Salinger—Little, Brown ($3). “Some of my best friends are children,” says Jerome David Salinger, 32.

“In fact, all of my best friends are children.” And Salinger has written short stories about his best friends with love, brilliance and 20-20 vision. In his tough-tender first novel, The Catcher in the Rye (a Book-of-the-Month Club midsummer choice), he charts the miseries and ecstasies of an adolescent rebel, and deals out some of the most acidly humorous deadpan satire since the late great Ring Lardner. Some Cheap Hotel. A lanky, crew-cut 16, well-born Holden Caulfield is sure all the world is out of step but him. His code is the survival of the flippest, and he talks a lingo as forthright and gamy, in its way, as a soldier’s. Flunking four subjects out of five, he has just been fired from his fourth school. Afraid to go home ahead of his bad news, he checks in at a cheap New York hotel; in the next 48 hours, he tries on a man-about-town role several sizes too large for him.

Getting sickly drunk at a bar, he slithers away in a Walter Mitty mood, pretending: “Rocky’s mob got me … I kept putting my hand under my jacket, on my stomach and all, to keep the blood from dripping all over the place. I didn’t want anybody to know I was even wounded . . . Boy, was I drunk.” Some Crazy Cliff. When the seedy night elevator man proposes sending a young prostitute to his room, bravado makes him play along. Besides: “I worry about that stuff sometimes. I read this book once . . . that had this very sophisticated, suave, sexy guy in it . . . and all he did in his spare time was beat women off with a club … He said, in this one part, that a woman’s body is like a violin and all, and that it takes a terrific musician to play it right. It was a very corny book—I realize that—but I couldn’t get that violin stuff out of my mind anyway.” His enthusiasm for that kind of fiddling practice fades in hopeless embarrassment as soon as the tart snakes out of her dress.

Scolded by testy cab drivers, seared by his best girl’s refusal to elope with him, and surrounded by an adult world of “phonies,” he loses control of his tight-lipped histrionics. He sneaks home for a midnight chat with his perky ten-year-old sister, breaks down and cries on her bed. In a moving moment, he tells her what he would really like to do and be: “I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy . . .” For U.S. readers, the prize catch in The Catcher in the Rye may well be Novelist Salinger himself. He can understand an adolescent mind without displaying one.

Read the 1961 cover story about J.D. Salinger here in the TIME Vault: Sonny J.D. Salinger (Author of The Catcher in the Rye) Literature & Fiction , Short Stories Influences edit data Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success.

His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, espe Jerome David Salinger was an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature. His last original published work was in 1965; he gave his last interview in 1980. Raised in Manhattan, Salinger began writing short stories while in secondary school, and published several stories in the early 1940s before serving in World War II. In 1948 he published the critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" in The New Yorker magazine, which became home to much of his subsequent work. In 1951 Salinger released his novel The Catcher in the Rye, an immediate popular success. His depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence in the protagonist Holden Caulfield was influential, especially among adolescent readers. The novel remains widely read and controversial, selling around 250,000 copies a year. The success of The Catcher in the Rye led to public attention and scrutiny: Salinger became reclusive, publishing new work less frequently.

He followed Catcher with a short story collection, Nine Stories (1953), a collection of a novella and a short story, Franny and Zooey (1961), and a collection of two novellas, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). His last published work, a novella entitled "Hapworth 16, 1924", appeared in The New Yorker on June 19, 1965. Afterward, Salinger struggled with unwanted attention, including a legal battle in the 1980s with biographer Ian Hamilton and the release in the late 1990s of memoirs written by two people close to him: Joyce Maynard, an ex-lover; and Margaret Salinger, his daughter. In 1996, a small publisher announced a deal with Salinger to publish "Hapworth 16, 1924" in book form, but amid the ensuing publicity, the release was indefinitely delayed.

He made headlines around the globe in June 2009, after filing a lawsuit against another writer for copyright infringement resulting from that writer's use of one of Salinger's characters from The Catcher in the Rye. Salinger died of natural causes on January 27, 2010, at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire. Rereadings: The Catcher in the Rye | Books | The Guardian The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger Little, Brown, 1951 When JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye was first published, the reviews were hostile and dismissive. However, by 1953 when I, a sulky 17-year-old American, read the book, it was already a classic. I could recite whole passages by heart while looking suggestively into the eyes of my date who, like me, thought everything about the adult world was, as Holden Caulfield said, "phoney". The book celebrated the good English student, the sensitive outsider, the kid who in today's world might be a "freak". It mocked the cruel jocks and the successful ones who played by the rules.

Holden may have been expelled from various schools, but all virtue, all human kindness, was expelled with him. In the 1950s, conformity and hypocrisy were the enemy of all that was vital, interesting, original, promising and true; at least this is how we saw the world. Holden would not be silenced. He would not hide in the fog that covered us all. He had real feelings. So many of us loved Holden Caulfield because he, like us, was an outsider that, had we noticed, it would have been a major logical problem. If the number of would-be Holdens was anywhere equal to the number of those who carried the book the way Jehovah's Witnesses pack their Bibles, how isolated or remarkable could we be? Were we in fact outsiders, or were we merely foot soldiers in a new army that was to appear in the 1960s? Nonetheless, it was, Salinger's attack on the "phoney" that seemed to me the essence and the glory of the book. But when I picked it up again recently and reread it, I saw that I had, in fact, missed the point. This short novel is about mourning and loss.

Holden's journey through various schools begins with the death of his brother of leukemia and his parents' attempt to protect him by not allowing him to attend the funeral. He locks himself in the garage and breaks his hands in fury. It is unspoken grief that ails Holden. The next death in this book is of a classmate bullied into falling out of his dorm window. This death is also not discussed by the adults in the school and is covered up entirely. When Holden wonders in a famous passage about where the ducks in Central Park go in winter, it is clear he is wondering about the disappeared, the unspoken of, the removed, the dead. While isolation, dramatic loneliness are common to the adolescent soul, what was particular to Holden was his hard-earned knowledge that death was coming, had come and no one would speak of it. Holden said that when he grew up he wanted to be a "catcher in the rye". This catcher was a person who would run through the fields that were on the crest of a sharp cliff and whose responsibility it was to catch the children playing in those fields before they fell to their deaths. Holden dreams of saving his brother, and perhaps not just his own brother.

This book was written in the wake of the second world war, when all over America families had lost their sons and brothers and husbands - but in the culture at large this was not a time for mourning or remembering; it was a time for building and booming, and a determined optimism covered the grief that must have afflicted so many. This book was also written in the face of the silence about the Holocaust. In the immediate post-war years, there was so very little comment on the deaths we knew had occurred. As with the the death of the weaker boy at Holden's boarding school, no one seemed to care. The numbers of dead were shocking. The absence of those who would have lived and loved must have created a huge hole in humanity - but no one was talking about it, not in the early 50s, and certainly not in the late 40s when Salinger wrote this novel. Delicious isolation. A romantic sense of one's self as special. A cold eye cast on others less prone to read poetry. These are the common marks of misfit adolescents on the edge of trouble. But Holden's real trouble was silence, unrelieved mourning, grief he could not name.

Decades later, I read this book, with affection, of course, for Holden, for my own misspent youth, but with a new appreciation for the ground the author was breaking. In today's world of grief counsellors accompanying every disaster, and therapists as common as bus drivers, mourning would never be allowed to fester unattended, which is, on the whole, a good thing. But The Catcher in the Rye remains the book that froze history at the moment before we could see ourselves as children falling from the cliff, as a people in mourning. SparkNotes: The Catcher in the Rye: Context The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger Table of Contents Plot Overview Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. The son of a wealthy cheese importer, Salinger grew up in a fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan and spent his youth being shuttled between various prep schools before his parents finally settled on the Valley Forge Military Academy in 1934. He graduated from Valley Forge in 1936 and attended a number of colleges, including Columbia University, but did not graduate from any of them.

While at Columbia, Salinger took a creative writing class in which he excelled, cementing the interest in writing that he had maintained since his teenage years. Salinger had his first short story published in 1940; he continued to write as he joined the army and fought in Europe during World War II. Upon his return to the United States and civilian life in 1946, Salinger wrote more stories, publishing them in many respected magazines. In 1951, Salinger published his only full-length novel, The Catcher in the Rye, which propelled him onto the national stage. Many events from Salinger’s early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. For instance, Holden Caulfield moves from prep school to prep school, is threatened with military school, and knows an older Columbia student. In the novel, such autobiographical details are transplanted into a post–World War II setting. The Catcher in the Rye was published at a time when the burgeoning American industrial economy made the nation prosperous and entrenched social rules served as a code of conformity for the younger generation.

Because Salinger used slang and profanity in his text and because he discussed adolescent sexuality in a complex and open way, many readers were offended, and The Catcher in the Rye provoked great controversy upon its release. Some critics argued that the book was not serious literature, citing its casual and informal tone as evidence. The book was—and continues to be—banned in some communities, and it consequently has been thrown into the center of debates about First Amendment rights, censorship, and obscenity in literature. Though controversial, the novel appealed to a great number of people. It was a hugely popular bestseller and general critical success. Salinger’s writing seemed to tap into the emotions of readers in an unprecedented way. As countercultural revolt began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s, The Catcher in the Rye was frequently read as a tale of an individual’s alienation within a heartless world. Holden seemed to stand for young people everywhere, who felt themselves beset on all sides by pressures to grow up and live their lives according to the rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their own personalities and conform to a bland cultural norm.

Many readers saw Holden Caulfield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face of cultural oppression. In the same year that The Catcher in the Rye appeared, Salinger published a short story in The New Yorker magazine called “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” which proved to be the first in a series of stories about the fictional Glass family. Over the next decade, other “Glass” stories appeared in the same magazine: “Franny,” “Zooey,” and “Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters.” These and other stories are available in the only other books Salinger published besides The Catcher in the Rye: Nine Stories (1953), Franny and Zooey (1961), and Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963). Though Nine Stories received some critical acclaim, the critical reception of the later stories was hostile. Critics generally found the Glass siblings to be ridiculously and insufferably precocious and judgmental. Beginning in the early 1960s, as his critical reputation waned, Salinger began to publish less and to disengage from society.

In 1965, after publishing another Glass story (“Hapworth 26, 1924”) that was widely reviled by critics, he withdrew almost completely from public life, a stance he has maintained up to the present. This reclusiveness, ironically, made Salinger even more famous, transforming him into a cult figure. To some degree, Salinger’s cult status has overshadowed, or at least tinged, many readers’ perceptions of his work. As a recluse, Salinger, for many, embodied much the same spirit as his precocious, wounded characters, and many readers view author and characters as the same being. Such a reading of Salinger’s work clearly oversimplifies the process of fiction writing and the relationship between the author and his creations. But, given Salinger’s iconoclastic behavior, the general view that Salinger was himself a sort of Holden Caulfield is understandable. The few brief public statements that Salinger made before his death in 2010 suggested that he continued to write stories, implying that the majority of his works might not appear until after his death.

Meanwhile, readers have become more favorably disposed toward Salinger’s later writings, meaning that The Catcher in the Rye may one day be seen as part of a much larger literary whole. More Help The Praises and Criticisms of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye The Praises and Criticisms of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye by Eric Lomazoff ( lommie@ix.netcom.com ) Copyright © 1996 by Eric Lomazoff. (Reproduced here with the permission of the author.) Ever since its publication in 1951, J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye has served as a firestorm for controversy and debate. Critics have argued the moral issues raised by the book and the context in which it is presented. Some have argued that Salinger's tale of the human condition is fascinating and enlightening, yet incredibly depressing. The psychological battles of the novel's main character, Holden Caulfield, serve as the basis for critical argument. Caulfield's self-destruction over a period of days forces one to contemplate society's attitude toward the human condition.

Salinger's portrayal of Holden, which includes incidents of depression, nervous breakdown, impulsive spending, sexual exploration, vulgarity, and other erratic behavior, have all attributed to the controversial nature of the novel. Yet the novel is not without its sharp advocates, who argue that it is a critical look at the problems facing American youth during the 1950's. When developing a comprehensive opinion of the novel, it is important to consider the praises and criticisms of The Catcher in the Rye. When studying a piece of literature, it is meaningful to note the historical background of the piece and the time at which it was written. Two J.D. Salinger short stories, "I'm Crazy" and "Slight Rebellion off Madison," were published in periodicals during the 1940's, and introduced Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye. Both short stories were revised for later inclusion in Salinger's novel. The Catcher in the Rye was written in a literary style similar to prose, which was enhanced by the teenage slang of the 1950's.

It is a widespread belief that much of Holden Caulfield's candid outlook on life reflects issues relevant to the youth of today, and thus the novel continues to be used as an educational resource in high schools throughout the nation (Davis 317-18). The first step in reviewing criticism of The Catcher in the Rye is to study the author himself. Before his novel, J.D. Salinger was of basic non-literary status, having written for years without notice from critics or the general public. The Catcher in the Rye was his first step onto the literary playing field. This initial status left Salinger, as a serious writer, almost unique as a sort of free agent, not bound to one or more schools of critics, like many of his contemporaries were. This ability to write freely, his status as a nobody in the literary world, was Salinger's greatest asset.

Rather than to scope inside Salinger's mind and create a grea tness for him, we are content instead to note him for what he is: "a beautifully deft, professional performer who gives us a chance to catch quick, half-amused, half-frightened glimpses of ourselves and our contemporaries, as he confronts us with his brilliant mirror images" (Stevenson 217). Much of Salinger's reputation, which he acquired after publication of The Catcher in the Rye, is derived from thoughtful and sympathetic insights into both adolescence and adulthood, his use of symbolism, and his idiomatic style, which helped to re-introduce the common idiom to American literature. While the young protagonists of Salinger's stories (such as Holden Caulfield) have made him a longtime favorite of high school and university audiences, establishing Salinger as "the spokesman for the goals and values for a generation of youth during the 1950's" (qtd. in Davis 317), The Catcher in the Rye has been banned continually from schools, libraries, and bookstores due to its profanity, sexual subject matter, and rejection of some traditional American ideals.

Robert Coles reflected general critical opinion of the author when he called Salinger "an original and gifted writer, a marvelous entertainer, a man free of the slogans and clich�s the rest of us fall prey to" (qtd. in Davis 317). Obviously, the bulk of praise and criticism regarding any novel or piece of literature will come from published critical reviews. When a novel or any piece of literature is published in the United States, critics from newspapers, magazines, and various other sources flock to interpret the book and critique its style. The same was true for Salinger's novel. Noted book reviewers from across America critiqued The Catcher in the Rye, bestowing both praise and criticism at different levels. Each reviewer commented on different parts of the novel, from Holden's cynicism to the apparently homosexual Mr. Antolini. The novel, like any other, was devoured and picked apart piece by piece. It is the role of the researcher, therefore, to analyze the various reviews and develop a clear understanding of the novel. One of the most widespread criticisms of The Catcher in the Rye deals with the adolescence and repetitive nature of the main character, Holden Caulfield.

Anne Goodman commented that in the course of such a lengthy novel, the reader would weary of a character such as Holden. Goodman wrote "Holden was not quite so sensitive and perceptive as he, and his creator, thought he was" (20). She also remarked that Holden was so completely self-centered that any other characters who wandered through the book, with the exception of Holden's sister, Phoebe, had no authenticity at all. She wrote of Salinger's novel: "The Catcher in the Rye is a brilliant tour-de-force, but in a writer of Salinger's undeniable talent one expects something more" (21). Goodman did have a point in the fact that Holden was something of an over-developed character. He described himself early in the novel, and with the sureness of a "wire recording," (Goodman 20) he remained strictly in character throughout. Salinger failed in his novel to address other characters with as much detail as Holden. This is due in part to the fact that Holden tells his own story, and also to the idea that a story told by Holden Caulfield would never describe others, as he speaks only of himself.

Reviewer James Stern of the New York Times critiqued Salinger's novel by incorporating Holden's style of speech into his review. Stern tried to imitate Holden by using short, incomplete sentences with undeveloped ideas: "That's the way it sounds to me, Hel said (a friend of the author), and away she went with this crazy book, The Catcher in the Rye. What did I tell ya, she said the next day. This Salinger, he's a short story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book, though, it's too long. Gets kinds of monotonous. And he should have cut out a lot about these jerks and all at that crumby school. They depress me. They really do. Salinger, he's best with real children. I mean the ones like Phoebe, his kid sister. She's a personality. Holden and little Phoebe, Hel said, they kill me. This last part about her and this Mr. Antolini, the only guy Holden ever thought he could trust, who ever took any interest in him, and who turned out queer -- that's terrific. I swear it is" (5).

Stern's goal in this review was to critique the novel for its length and its melancholy nature. He saw The Catcher in the Rye as being too depressive to be of any redeeming value to the reader. Stern did praise him, however, when he commented on Salinger's ability to write about children. Other short stories by Salinger, such as "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Franny and Zooey," are also based around children and adolescents. Some critics have argued that Holden's character is erratic and unreliable, as he possesses many of the middle-class values that he claims to reject. Later commentators, however, have praised the wry humor of the main character, his "technical virtuosity" (qtd. in Davis 318), and the skilled mockery of verbal speech by Salinger. These critics have commented that the structure of the novel personifies Holden's unstable state of mind. Alastair Best remarked: "There is a hard, almost classical structure underneath Holden's rambling narrative. The style, too, appears effortless; yet one wonders how much labour went into those artfully rough-hewn sentences" (qtd. in Davis 318).

A larger field of critics at the time of The Catcher in the Rye's publication in 1951 took a positive view of the novel. For example, Chicago Tribune reviewer Paul Engle commented that the story was "emotional without being sentimental, dramatic without being melodramatic, and honest without simply being obscene" (3). Engle also wrote of the authenticity of Holden's character, the idea that his voice was typical of a teenager, never childish or written down to that age level. He praised the book in noting that it was not merely another account of adolescence, complete with general thoughts on youth and growing up. Engle wrote: "The effort has been made to make the text, told by the boy himself, as accurate and yet as imaginative as possible. In this, it largely succeeds" (3). Engle's viewpoint is one that is echoed by many. The Catcher in the Rye is not simply a coming-of-age novel with usual twists and turns, but rather, the unique story of a unique child. It is rare to find a character, actual or fictitious, who is as dazzling and enticing as Holden Caulfield. As Engle wrote, "The story is engaging and believable . . .

full of right observations and sharp insight, and a wonderful sort of grasp of how a boy can create his own world of fantasy and live forms" (3). Generally, critics view the novel as Holden Caulfield's melodramatic struggle to survive in the adult world, a transition that he was supposed to make during his years at preparatory school. Some critics will point to the fact that Holden has flunked out of three Pennsylvania prep schools, and use it to symbolize the fact that he is not truly ready for adulthood (Davis 318). David Stevenson commented that the novel was written "as the boy's comment, half-humorous, half agonizing, concerning his attempt to recapture his identity and his hopes for playing a man-about-town for a lost, partially tragic, certainly frenetic weekend" (216). Reviewer Charles Kegel commented that the novel could be read as Holden Caulfield's "quest for communicability with his fellow man, and the hero's first person after-the-fact narration indicates . . . he has been successful in his quest" (53). Though considered by most to be a tragedy, The Catcher in the Rye is found by some critics to be humorous, witty, and clever.

The use of Chaplin-like incidents serves to keep the story hovering in ambivalence between comedy and tragedy. Whenever a character is nearing the point of no return in a Salinger piece, it is usually done by route of the comic (Stevenson 216). Other commentators have noted that much of the humor in The Catcher in the Rye comes from Holden's misconceptions about adulthood. An example is shown in Holden's relationship with an old schoolmate, Luce. Although the older man is more experienced than Holden, he is not as mature as Holden believes him to be. After an attempt at communication with Luce fails, Holden flees to Phoebe, the only person he completely trusts (Davis 318). S.N. Behrman also noted that the literalness and innocence of Holden's point of view in the face of complicated and depraved facts of life makes for the humor of the novel: haggles with unfriendly taxi-drivers, futile conversations with a prostitute in a hurry, an intellectual discussion with a man a few years older than himself, and a completely hilarious date with Sally Hayes, an old girlfriend (74). The humor in Holden's character comes from his communication with the outside world.

His innocence, in my point of the view, his hunger for stability and permanence, make him both a tragic and touching character, capable of making dark activities on the surface seem hilarious and silly below. One of the most popular means by which The Catcher in the Rye is critiqued is through the comparison of Holden Caulfield to other literary characters. The novel is often compared to traditional period literature, particularly Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Both works feature naive, adolescent runaways as narrators, both commenting on the problems of their times, and both novels have been recurrently banned or restricted (Davis 318). John Aldrige remarked that both novels are "study in the spiritual picaresque, the joinery that for the young is all one way, from holy innocence to such knowledge as the world offers, from the reality which illusion demands and thinks it sees to the illusion which reality insists, at the point of madness, we settle for" (129). Harvey Breit of The Atlantic Bookshelf wrote of Holden Caulfield: "(He) struck me as an urban, a transplanted Huck Finn. He has a colloquialism as marked as Huck's . . .

Like Huck, Holden is neither comical or misanthrope. He is an observer. Unlike Huck, he makes judgments by the dozen, but these are not to be taken seriously; they are conceits. There is a drollery, too, that is common to both, and a quality of seeing that creates farce" (82). It is possible, in theory, to do an entire character study comparing Holden and Huck. Both are adolescents, runaways from society, seeking independence, growth, and stability in their lives. Another character that Holden Caulfield is compared to, though to a lesser degree than Huck Finn, is Hamlet. Like Hamlet, as Charles Kegel wrote, Holden is a "sad, screwed-up guy" (54), bothered by words which only seem true, but are really quite phony. The honesty and sincerity that Holden cannot seem to find in others he tries to maintain within himself. Holden often makes a point of using the word "really" to assert the fact that something is really so, to prove to the reader that had not become a phony himself. Holden is distressed often by the occasional realization that he too, must be phony to exist in the adult world.

With regard to the insincere "Glad to've met you" formula, he comments that "if you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though" (qtd. in 54-5). It is evident by studying the reviews of The Catcher in the Rye that most critics enjoy picking apart the character of Holden Caulfield, studying his every action and the basis for that action. Reviewers of the novel have gone to great lengths to express their opinions on Salinger's protagonist. Some consider Holden to be sympathetic, others consider him arrogant, but the large majority of them find him utterly entertaining. In her review of The Catcher in the Rye for the New York Herald Tribune, Virgilia Peterson commented on Holden Caulfield's innocence. Peterson wrote that Holden was on the side of the angels, despite his contamination by vulgarity, lust, lies, temptations, recklessness, and cynicism. "But these are merely the devils that try him externally," she wrote, "inside, his spirit is intact" (3).

Holden does not tilt against the entire adult world, for he knows that some decent citizens still remain, nor does he loathe his worst contemporaries, for he often hates to leave them. Peterson commented: "For Holden Caulfield, despite all the realism for which he is supposedly depicted, is nevertheless a skinless perfectionist." In addition, Peterson wrote that Salinger speaks for himself as well as his hero when he has Holden say to little Phoebe: "I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around- nobody big I mean- except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff. I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them . . . I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. . . " (qtd. in 3; Salinger 173). In essence, Holden Caulfield is a good guy stuck in a bad world.

He is trying to make the best of his life, though ultimately losing that battle. Whereas he aims at stability and truth, the adult world cannot survive without suspense and lies. It is a testament to his innocence and decent spirit that Holden wouldplace the safety and well-being of children as a goal in his lifetime. This serves to only re-iterate the fact that Holden is a sympathetic character, a person of high moral values who is too weak to pick himself up from a difficult situation. S.N. Behrman, in his review for The New Yorker, also took a sharp look at Holden's personality. Behrman found Caulfield to be very self-critical, as he often refers to himself as a terrible liar, a madman, and a moron. Holden is driven crazy by phoniness, an idea under which he lumps insincerity, snobbery, injustice, callousness, and a lot more. He is a prodigious worrier, and someone who is moved to pity quite often.

Behrman wrote: "Grown men sometimes find the emblazoned obscenities of life too much for them, and leave this world indecorously, so the fact that a 16-year old boy is overwhelmed should not be surprising" (71). Holden is also labeled as curious and compassionate, a true moral idealist whose attitude comes from an intense hatred of hypocrisy. The novel opens in a doctor's office, where Holden is recuperating from physical illness and a mental breakdown. In Holden's fight with Stradlater, his roommate, he reveals his moral ideals: he fears his roommate's sexual motives, and he values children for their sincerity and innocence, seeking to protect them from the phony adult society. Jane Gallagher and Allie, the younger brother of Holden who died at age 11, represent his everlasting symbols of goodness (Davis 317). A quote by Charles Kegel seems to adequately sum up the problems of Holden Caulfield: "Like Stephen Dedalus of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Caulfield is in search of the Word.

His problem is one of communication: as a teenager, he simply cannot get through to the adult world which surrounds him; as a sensitive teenager, he cannot get through others of his own age" (54). When critics consider the character of Holden Caulfield, many point to the novel's climactic scene, when Holden watches as Phoebe rides the Central Park carousel in the rain and his illusion of protecting the innocence of children is symbolically shattered. Critics regard this episode as Holden's transition into adulthood, for although the future is uncertain, his severed ties with the dead past have enabled him to accept maturity. James Bryan observed: "The richness in the spirit of this novel, especially of the vision, the compassion, and the humor of the narrator reveal a physche far healthier than that of the boy who endured the events of the narrative. Through the telling of the story, Holden has given shape to, and thus achieved control of, his troubled past" (qtd. in Davis 318). S.N.

Behrman noted in his critique of The Catcher in the Rye that the hero and heroine of the novel, Holden's dead brother Allie and Jane Gallagher, never appear in it, but they are always in Holden's mind, together with his sister, Phoebe. These three people constitute Holden's emotional frame of reference -- the reader knows them better than the other characters Holden encounters, who are generally, except for Phoebe, nonessential (71). When asked for a final comment on the character of Holden Caulfield, John Aldrige stated that the innocence of the main character was a combination of urban intelligence, juvenile contempt, and New Yorker sentimentalism. The only challenge it has left, therefore, is that of the genuine, the truly human, in a world which has lost both the means of adventure and the means of love (130). One of the most intriguing points in Holden's character, related to his prolonged inability to communicate, is Holden's intention to become a deaf-mute.

So repulsed is he by the phoniness around him that he wishes not to communicate with anyone, and in a passage filled with personal insight he contemplates a retreat within himself: "I figured that I could get a job at a filling station somewhere, putting gas and oil in people's cars. I didn't care what kind of job it was, though. Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any goddam stupid useless conversation with anybody. If anybody wanted to tell me something, they'd have to write it on a piece of paper and shove it over to me. They'd get bored as hell doing that after a while, and then I'd be through with having conversations for the rest of my life. Everybody'd think I was just a poor deaf-mute bastard and they'd leave me alone . . . I'd cook all my own food, and later on, if I wanted to get married or something, I'd meet this beautiful girl that was also a deaf-mute and we'd getmarried.

She'd come and live in my cabin with me, and if she wanted to say anything to me, she'd have to write it on a piece of paper, like everybody else" (Salinger 198). Caulfield's inability to communicate with others is also represented symbolically in the uncompleted phone calls and undelivered messages which appear throughout the novel . . . On fifteen separate occasions, Holden gets the urge to communicate by phone, yet only four phone calls are ever completed, and even those are with unfortunate results (Kegel 55). The final step in the critical analyzing of The Catcher in the Rye is to look at what has occurred at or near the end of the novel. John Aldrige wrote that in the end, Holden remains what he was in the beginning- cyni cal, defiant, and blind. As for the reader, there is identification but no insight, a sense of"pathos but not tragedy." This may be Salinger's intent, as Holden's world does not possess sufficient humanity to make the search for humanity dramatically feasible (131). Other critics, however, have taken a slightly more optimistic view of the novel's conclusion. For example, S.N.

Behrman remarked that Holden knows that things won't remain the same; they are dissolving, and he cannot allow himself to reconcile with it. Holden doesn't have the knowledge to trace his breakdown or the mental clarity to define it, for all he knows is that "a large avalanche of disintegration is occurring around him" (75). Yet there is some sort of exhilaration, an immense relief in the final scene at Central Park, when we know Holden will be all right. Behrman quipped: "One day, he will probably find himself in the mood to call up Jane. He may become more tolerant of phonies . . . or even write a novel. I would like to read it. I loved this one. I mean it- I really did" (75-6). Charles Kegel wrote that Holden will not submit to the phoniness of life, but will attain an attitude of tolerance, understanding, and love which will make his life endurable. There is no doubt that when he returns home to New York, for he will return home, he will be in the mood to give "old Jane a buzz" (56).

In the end, The Catcher in the Rye will continue to be a point of great public and critical debate. One must remember, however, in the study and critique of the novel, particularly for a researcher or critic in 1996, that the story was written in a different time. If originally published today, the novel would probably create little publicity and garner only average book sales. The fact that a novel of such radical social opinion and observation was written in a time of conservatism in America made it all the more controversial. Some critics scolded the novel as being too pessimistic or obscene, too harsh for the society of the 1950's. Others, however, nominated Salinger himself as the top-flight "catcher in the rye" for that period in American history (Peterson 3). They argued that Salinger's concerns represented an entire generation of American youth, frustrated by the phoniness of the world, just like Holden was. The popularity of the novel and debate over its redeeming social value have never faltered since its initial publication, due in no large part to the fact that J.D. Salinger is now a recluse.

It would be conclusive to say that critics of The Catcher in the Rye have legitimate criticisms of the novel, while advocates and supporters of the story's message also have expressed veritable praise. Works Cited Aldrige, John. "The Society of Three Novels." In Search of Heresy: American Literature in an Age of Conformity. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956, 126-48. Behrman, S.N. "The Vision of the Innocent." Rev. of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The New Yorker, Vol. XXVII, No. 26, 11 August 1951, 71-6. Breit, Harvey. Rev. of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The Atlantic Bookshelf, Vol. CLXXXVIII, No. 2, August 1951, 82. Davis, Robert Con, ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 56. Detroit: Gail Research Inc., 1989. Engle, Paul. "Honest Tale of Distraught Adolescent." Rev.

of The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine of Books 15 July 1951, 3. Goodman, Anne. "Mad about Children." Rev. of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The New Republic, Vol. 125, No. 3, 16 July 1951, 20-1. Kegel, Charles. "Incommunicability in Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye'." Studies in J.D. Salinger: Reviews, Essays, and Critiques of 'The Catcher in the Rye' and Other Fiction, Marvin Laser, ed. New York: Odyssey Press, 1963, 53-6. Peterson, Virgilia. "Three Days in the Bewildering World of an Adolescent." Rev. of The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. New York Herald Tribune Book Review 15 July 1951, 3. Salinger, Jerome David. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1951.

Stern, James. "Aw, the World's a Crumby Place." Rev. of The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. New York Times Book Review 15 July 1951, 5. Stevenson, David. "J.D. Salinger: The Mirror of Crisis." The Nation, Vol. 184, No. 10, 9 March 1957, 215-17. Catcher in the Rye sequel is among new Salinger works: Short story to be released with four other books | Daily Mail Online Catcher in the Rye sequel is among new Salinger works: Short story to be released with four other books The reclusive author did not publish anything for 45 years before his death Documentary makers revealed the books will be published before 2020 comments New material: Five new books from late author JD Salinger are to be released, it has been announced Five new books by the American author JD Salinger - who died in 2010 - are to be published in the coming years.

The reclusive writer, best known for the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, published nothing for 45 years before his death at the age of 91. But the makers of a new documentary on the novelist have revealed the titles of five books to be published between 2015 and 2020. The exhaustive documentary Salinger, which took Los Angeles script-writer Shane Salerno a decade and $2 million of his own money to make, was screened for the first time at the Telluride film festival in Colorado on Monday night. Mr Salerno said that Salinger left instructions for his estate to publish after his death several works that he wrote over a number of decades in his isolated home in New Hampshire. Fans of his most famous work will be pleased to hear that the main protagonist, Holden Caulfield, will be rolled out in a short story sequel titled ‘The Last and Best of the Peter Pans’, more than half a century after Salinger wrote it in 1962.

According to the documentary, the four other titles to be published between 2015 and 2020 are: ‘A Counterintelligence Agent’s Diary’ about his time interrogating prisoners of war when he served working in the counter-intelligence division; A World War II Love Story based on his brief marriage to Sylvia, a Nazi collaborator, just after the war; A Religious Manual detailing his adherence to Ramakrishna’s Advaita Vedanta Hinduism, the religion he turned to later in life; and ‘The Complete Chronicle of the Glass Family’ featuring five new short stories about his recurring character, Seymour Glass. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share In keeping with the author’s obsessive desire for secrecy, Salinger’s family and publishers have not made any public statement on the contents of the documentary, an accompanying 700-page book and a forthcoming film. The Catcher in the Rye is noted as a classic depiction of adolescent alienation and loss of innocence. Its simple first person narrative details sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield’s experiences in New York following his expulsion from an elite prep school.

Famous: Salinger's most well-known work is undoubtedly The Catcher in the Rye Although it received mixed reviews on publication, its acclaim and fame grew in later years and it has become a standard text in many secondary school English Literature classes. Salinger followed the book with several short stories and novellas in the 1950s and 60s, but he then struggled with unwanted attention and disappeared from the literary landscape. The new documentary and its accompanying book reveals the roles that post-traumatic stress and romantic liaisons played in Salinger’s work as he wrote several chapters of The Catcher in the Rye while serving with US forces in World War Two. The documentary maker Mr Salerno believes that Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) played a large part in the author’s life, as he went through three marriages after the war. He said: ‘World War II really was the transformative trauma of JD Salinger’s life. It made him as an artist, but it broke him as a man. He was living with PTSD throughout his life. ‘It really is the ghost in the machine of all his stories.

When you re-read the work with that in mind, you even realize that The Catcher in the Rye is a disguised war novel.’

Question: Who wrote the 1951 novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’?
Answer: J D Salinger